Our People

Dr. Arif Karabeyoglu - President and CTO

Dr. Karabeyoglu is the President and Chief Technical Officer of Space Propulsion Group, Inc. He has received his Masters and Doctorate degrees from Stanford University. He presently serves on the Expert Advisory Board that oversees the safe development of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket propulsion system and holds a Consulting Professor position at Stanford University. Dr. Karabeyoglu has performed extensive research and development activities in the field of chemical propulsion and green energy with emphasis on the creation of new concepts and their implementation to real life systems. He has been the Program Manager and Principal Investigator for a wide range of programs for clients such as Air Force, NASA, FAA, Navy, and Scaled Composites. Dr. Karabeyoglu has actively participated in a number of accident/mishap investigations including the Scaled Composites Tier 1B accident. Dr. Karabeyoglu has numerous journal articles, conference papers and patents. In addition, he has authored a book chapter on the instabilities in hybrid rocket propulsion systems. In addition, Dr. Karabeyoglu has started a course on Advanced Rocket Propulsion at Stanford University which he has been teaching since 2005. He also has been co-instructing an AIAA short course on hybrid rocket propulsion. He has served as the chairman of the AIAA's Hybrid Technical Committee during the period 2009-2011. Dr. Karabeyoglu is a member of the American Chemical Society and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.